Alankar Jewelarts – Intensive training, extensive results

In order to function optimally, an organization should be able to convey its brand message uniformly, right from the top management to the lowest-ranked worker. It is this belief that prompted Samarth Prakash, Managing Director, Alankar Jewelarts Pvt Ltd, to embark on a comprehensive training programme for his staff.

— Manoj Chakraborty

The well-planned course, aimed mostly at new hires, is spread out over six months. During this period, they get educated about the company, its rules and regulations, and its expectations from various employees. The course comprises several modules, such as product knowledge, company culture, systems management, theoretical knowledge, and practical aptitude.

“Although, in the past, we did hire some experienced personnel, but they failed to adjust with our working culture. Now, we have a permanent policy as per which we hire only fresher’s so that we can groom our employees as per our requirements. We have been running an in-house staff training programme for the past 15-20 years. In between, we took the help of professional trainers, but we didn’t get the desired results. We felt that the topics and the manner of training were not connecting with our work culture. So, we decided to take the matter in our own hands to train the staff our way.”

Apart from the training, which comes later, there is a grueling hiring process. A potential employee has to undergo multiple rounds of interviews before s/he is selected. Once the hiring is finally done, the in-house training starts. Two experienced staff members are deputed to start the process. During the first one-and-a-half month, they are taught the basics of gold and diamond jewellery, such as grammage, determination of carats, gradation of diamonds (the 4 “C”s), hallmarking, and so forth. After the completion of the initial period, the trainees have to appear for written and practical tests on a weekly basis. At the end of four months, the top management evaluates the performance of each trainee and takes a call on whether to retain her/him or not. Those who get the nod have to then complete the remaining part of the training.

At this stage, training includes role plays, where the senior staff members, as well as the proprietors, on occasion, pose as customers to test the skills and talent of the trainees. The top management interacts with the trainees on a regular basis, ensuring that they are under constant supervision right till the training comes to an end.

After the completion of the training period, the trainees are given various responsibilities, depending on their work skills. For example, if the trainee has good accounting skills, s/he will be hired in the accounts department, and if a person has good communication and sales skills, s/he will be placed accordingly. Yet another training programme, albeit a brief one, is conducted by the respective team leaders and/or department heads, once the trainees join the departments allocated to them.

Samarth believes that thanks to the current training model, only the best get the chance to work in the organization. “We hire 8-10 people at one time, so it becomes easy for us to train all of them at once. We have a retention rate of more than 90%, which speaks volumes about the success of our training module. I feel that due to the rigorous and detailed training, employees easily adapt to our working culture and environment. We have a number of employees who have been working with the company for more than a decade. Only in rare cases do employees leave the organization,” he adds.